Posts Tagged ‘tightly controlled’

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Barack Obama has seized control of the auto industry, in spite of the fact that Americans overwhelmingly thought it was a bad idea (with 59% disapproving). He has taken Bush measures to control the banks in order to control the scope of the financial crisis to an entirely new levels. And Obama additionally recently seized “unprecedented powers” over Wall Street:

The plan clearly grants the central bank unprecedented new powers to conduct comprehensive examinations of almost any U.S. financial company, as well as any of that company’s foreign affiliates. It would also give the central bank oversight of any commercial company that owns a banking charter known as an industrial loan company, according to TheJournal.

The only thing that anyone could argue was lacking in labeling Barack Obama as “a fascist” has been Obama’s contrived persona as presented in the media.

But that’s been blown away as well.

It’s somewhat surprising who would blow that mask away, but the fact that 40-year liberal White House Press Correspondent Helen Thomas would be the one to do it shows how obviously and how blatantly the Obama administration has sought to manipulate the media in full fascist fashion.

Helen Thomas: I’m a liberal, I was born a liberal, I’ll be one ’til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?

CBC Interviewer: Well, you know, it’s interesting because I’m sure that if somebody from the right was sitting here they would say… if you ask the question what should a reporter be they will say, “Oh, I don’t know, How about objective?”

Barack Obama had a much publicized “town hall” which turns out to have been very “tightly controlled,” with a tightly controlled audience and a tightly controlled list of White-House-approved questions. Barack Obama wants to keep the real tought questions – such as who will pay for the massive government health care, how much will it cost, and will any bureaucrat ever be allowed to get between a patient and his/her physician and make decisions based on statistics rather than medical needs, just to name a few – out of the spotlight. And so he has an event that is falsely presented as an open forum, but in actuality being controlled by the White House for propaganda purposes.

And Helen Thomas, to her credit, came unglued as White House Press Secretary Gibbs cheerfully presented the false face of propaganda as though nothing was amiss:

Gibbs: “… But, again, let’s–How about we do this? I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I will let you [Chip Reid] ask me a question tomorrow as to whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted in Annandale—“

Chip Reid: “I’m perfectly happy to—”

Helen Thomas:“That’s not his point. The point is the control–”

Reid: “Exactly.”

Thomas: “We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some, but not– This White House.”

Gibbs: “Yes, I was going to say, I’ll let you amend her question.”

Thomas:“I’m amazed. I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and—”

Gibbs: “Helen, you haven’t even heard the questions.”

Reid:“It doesn’t matter. It’s the process.”

Thomas: “You have left open—”

Reid: “Even if there’s a tough question, it’s a question coming from somebody who was invited or was screened, or the question was screened.”

Thomas:“It’s shocking. It’s really shocking.”

Gibbs: “Chip, let’s have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting. How about that?”

Reid: “Okay.”

Gibbs: “I think—“

Thomas: “No, no, no, we’re having it now–”

Gibbs: “Well, I’d be happy to have it now.”

Thomas:“It’s a pattern.”

Gibbs: “Which question did you object to at the town hall meeting, Helen?”

Thomas: “It’s a pattern. It isn’t the question—”

Gibbs: “What’s a pattern?”

Thomas:“It’s a pattern of controlling the press.”

Gibbs: “How so? Is there any evidence currently going on that I’m controlling the press–poorly, I might add.”

Thomas: “Your formal engagements are pre-packaged.”

Gibbs: “How so?”

Reid:“Well, and controlling the public—”

Thomas: “How so? By calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on. That is shocking.”

Helen Thomas has been a White House correspondent for more than forty years. And she has been a doctrinaire liberal who clearly would tend to see things from the perspective of the administration in power. It should be beyond disturbing to you that such a journalist would say, “We have never had that in the White House.” That she would say, This is really shocking.” And it should frighten you that she is “amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency” even as they reveal themselves to be the most manipulating and controlling administration in history. It’s not just about self-righteous hypocrisy; it goes to Nixonian levels of deceit and lust for power.

An attempt by a president to control the press is bad enough; it’s terrifying when that same president has already grabbed unprecedented control over so many other things.

And it gets downright creepy when you consider that this president who is now trying to control the press has actually recieved the most favorable press coverage of any president (nearly TWICE as much favorable coverage as Bush recieved during the same period even while Bush was virtually as “popular” as Obama was). It makes one wonder: what psychological defect, what pathological need to control, would need to exercise so much control?

This is no small matter. We now have a president who seized more power than any president in American history – FDR included. And we now have a Congress that is dominated by the same party as the president, and now posessing a filibuster-proof majority. For the media to be in bed (to allude to a joke Obama made about NBC anchor Brian Williams) with the president is beyond dangerous – especially with our economy in such a fragile state.

Democracy is doomed in a nation that allows propaganda to dominate – as America is clearly doing. Because in a democracy, people are expected to vote their will, and they cannot vote their own will when their opinion is being shaped and controlled by propaganda.

Update, July 3: As further proof that what I am arguing is true, take something that happened just yesterday, following the publication of this article.

The leftist Washington Post cancelled a “salon” event in the wake of an uproar over the sheer raving inappropriateness of such an event. The Newspaper planned to sell access to reporters and Obama administration officials to lobbyist for sums of up to $250,000. A quote from the Politico article breaking the story:

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

The newspaper has an incredibly flimsy excuse for this selling of its credibility, but the entire fiasco merely amounts to yet another of the complete abandonment of journalistic ethics and integrity of the mainstream media.

This is a blurring of the White House and the press that is intended to sell policy to the public. It is dangerous. It is facsist.